Evidence of meeting #21 for Health in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was healthy.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President, Canadian Medical Association
I stand corrected, sir, but it is interesting that in the demographics of our society you have to have supermarkets competing with farmers' markets and nutritionally based foods and that sort of thing, and the entire layout in advertising is directed towards the unhealthy food.
Conservative
Steven Fletcher Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB
I would have been very interested if there were companies subsidizing very bad eating habits at an economic loss, but I'm glad to hear that's not the case.
Dr. LeBlanc, would you respond?
Committee Chair, Healthy Active Living Committee, Canadian Paediatric Society
You know, we don't have to go to Massachusetts to realize that we're cutting back on physical activity opportunities for children. Was it not perhaps last year that kids couldn't play road hockey? I think there are many examples of how we as adults are actually cramping the style of our own children.
I can take that one step beyond. Although organized physical activity and exercise and sport are very important for children, do you realize that the more we have the whistle in our mouth, the less children do actual recreational play? So whatever strategy we come up with, it definitely has to involve unorganized play.
One of the most common things that one of my mentors, Dr. Oded Bar-Or--God bless him, he just passed away about a year ago--ever told families was to just put them outside. Give them an opportunity to go out and play; given that opportunity, they will find a way to be active.
I agree with you that we do need to be a little bit more specific on where we indicate our strategies need to lie, and if you look at the fact that children spend an awful lot of time at school, we can't ignore school as a potential backyard where we can institute changes. I think it's extremely important that we look at schools as opportunities to be healthy lifestyle workplaces for not just teachers and principals and students alike, but for janitors and everyone else who works in the school. I think we would have an opportunity there to make a healthy lifestyle choice or to allow children to have an option for healthy lifestyles as well. So there needs to be, I believe, an opportunity to create strategies that will involve schools, because that's where children spend a lot of time.
Marie, did you want to add to that?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Thank you very much.
We have another panel, so we'll ask Pat Martin to have the last questions for this panel and then we'll bring the others forward and continue with the rotation after the other group that is going to present.
Please go ahead.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, witnesses. Thank you also to Steven for introducing the theme I'd like to raise today. Steven and I co-wrote the motion that went to Parliament to ban trans fats, and we did so with the help of Senator Yves Morin, a cardiologist, I believe, and Senator Wilbert Keon, also a noted cardiologist. So Parliament seems to have spoken on the issue that as one element of the problem we're dealing with today, one thing we could do is eliminate trans fats from our diet, as Denmark has.
I would like to give you the opportunity to state for the record...do you believe we should implement the recommendations of the task force that has just finished studying this issue? Should we just label trans fats and warn people about them or should we ban them, as far as is reasonably practical, as far as it is possible to ban them? Can either of you comment on that?
Committee Chair, Healthy Active Living Committee, Canadian Paediatric Society
From the Canadian Paediatric Society's perspective, it's one reasonable approach to tackling this particular problem. Trans fats are well known to be a major problem, no question. Not only do they raise unhealthy cholesterol, they also lower healthy cholesterol.
We are not in favour of having children eat a lot of trans fats, and any way we can improve the overall healthy food choices for children would be very much appreciated.
President, Canadian Medical Association
We agree, and that would be a major plank of a comprehensive strategy.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Okay, thank you.
I also thank you, Doctor, for raising the issue of the aboriginal population. I represent the riding of downtown Winnipeg, with a huge off-reserve aboriginal population. And I recognize and believe it is a socio-economic factor, that it takes a fair amount of economic stability to eat well. If you're spending your weekly food budget in Seven Eleven instead of in a full supermarket in the suburbs that has more choices, it really does manifest itself in the children I see.
My wife teaches a program in the inner city called wiggle, giggle and munch that takes babies.... Have you heard of it, Doctor? Oh, really. It's very cheap. For $5,000 you get 18 sessions with these moms who teach babies how to start moving, and it teaches moms how to encourage babies to get them moving. So it doesn't take much.
Getting back to the reserve issue, one thing that's come up is that flying beer into reserves is subsidized. You pay the same price for a case of beer in downtown Winnipeg as on a remote reserve, whereas four litres of milk is $18. I was on a fly-in reserve recently where four bruised apples were wrapped in a package, and it was $8.50 for four unappetizing-looking apples.
Have you heard people talking about ways to make good food more available? Is that something we have to address as well?
Executive Director, Canadian Paediatric Society
Certainly, and we've had a number of meetings about the health of our first nations, Inuit, and Métis children and youth over the past couple of years. In fact, Ms. Keeper was keynote speaker at an event we co-hosted last year.
What's very important in addressing the issue is to make sure the first nations, Inuit, and Métis are involved and that the solutions are culturally appropriate. We have seen success in first nations and Inuit communities bringing down the obesity levels of their children when they have gone back to culturally appropriate and traditional approaches.
There's some very interesting research starting to emerge about the reintroduction of traditional diets for first nations communities. So even some of our healthy choices may not be as healthy for first nations people as their traditional diets.
We support that type of research and are looking into it. But the cultural appropriateness of the programs cannot be stressed enough, and that's what we hear from our aboriginal partners.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Thank you very much for presenting your very valuable information for the committee to take into consideration as we move forward to a recommendation.
We will ask the second panel now to approach the table and we will start with those presentations.
Our time is going to be rather short, so we'll be as tight as we possibly can. We have five presenters. I won't introduce everyone at the present time, but I'll introduce you as we give you the floor.
We have with us, from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, Martine Vallee. With you is Denis Carmel. The floor is yours.
Martine Vallee Director, English Pay, Specialty and Social Policy, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Thank you.
Good afternoon. My name is Martine Vallee. I am director of English pay, specialty, and social policy at the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. I'm here today with Denis Carmel, who is director of public affairs at the commission. Also here in the room is Scott Hutton, associate executive director of broadcasting, and Jane Britten, manager of social policy in broadcasting.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to talk about the Commission's activities that may be relevant to the topic of childhood obesity and its potential relationship to the broadcast media.
The CRTC is an independent public authority that oversees the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in Canada. The Commission's mandate, as outlined in the Broadcasting Act, is to regulate and supervise Canada's broadcasting system in a manner that contributes to the cultural, social and economic objectives set out in the legislation.
The commission is sensitive to the role that broadcasting, and television in particular, plays in transmitting and influencing social values. Some of our concerns include the impact of violent content on children, the portrayal of minority groups, and the broadcast of hatred or contempt, to name a few.
The commission's involvement in social policy areas like these takes into account a variety of objectives that are set out in the Broadcasting Act. The act states, among other things, that programming should be of high standard, respectful of equality rights, and reflective of Canadian values. It should also contribute to Canada's social, economic, and cultural fabric.
The act also affirms that in pursuing these objectives the commission must respect freedom of expression, as upheld by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and must not engage in censorship or intervene in the day-to-day programming decisions made by licensees.
The commission oversees a number of social issues pertaining to broadcasting. Our activities in this regard fall into three broad categories: increasing access to the broadcasting system by persons with disabilities; improving the social integration of marginalized groups; and ensuring that content respects community standards.
The commission becomes involved in areas of broad societal concern when such issues are brought to our attention by concerned citizens and when further investigation indicates that we have a role to play. Issues come to us in a number of ways: through the complaints process, interventions at licence renewals or policy proceedings, or other representations to the commission by concerned individuals or groups. Our role can be far-reaching or peripheral. The extent of our involvement depends on how direct a relationship broadcast content has with the issue at hand. We also take into account what, if anything, the broadcasting industry is already doing to address the concern.
The commission relies to a great extent on self-regulation to address social policy concerns. This self-regulation most often consists of industry-developed initiatives and broadcast codes that set out content standards and appropriate broadcast conduct. Our experience is that putting the onus on the industry itself to come up with initiatives and solutions increases the understanding by broadcasters of the issue at hand and tends to result in greater acceptance and buy-in by the industry.
We note that Concerned Children's Advertisers, Media Awareness Network, and Advertising Standards Canada, also appearing before the committee today, represent examples of broadcasting industry partnerships engaging in initiatives to address concerns relating to broadcast advertising and children.
The Commission is very often involved in the development and enforcement of broadcast codes. Such codes play a critical role in setting out industry standards and specific guidelines for programming and advertising content.
Broadcasters adhere to a variety of codes, addressing areas such as gender portrayal, ethics, violence on television and advertising to children. Through these codes, broadcasters commit to respect the interests and sensitivities of the people they serve, while meeting their responsibility to preserve the industry's creative, editorial and journalistic freedom.
Broadcasting codes are developed by the industry, sometimes at the request of the Commission and, at other times, they are initiated by the industry itself.
The commission requires broadcasters to adhere to two industry codes regarding advertising content: the code for broadcast advertising of alcoholic beverages and the broadcast code for advertising to children. Both codes address the potentially negative social effects of advertising on children.
Of particular interest to your study today is the broadcast code for advertising to children. It recognizes the special characteristics of the child audience, particularly the vulnerability and impressionability of children, and establishes specific criteria about what can and cannot be communicated or depicted in children's broadcast advertising.
Among other things, the code prohibits the use of puppets, persons, and characters well-known to children or featured on children's programs to endorse or personally promote products. It also contains clauses to ensure that children are not unduly pressured to buy or have their parents buy particular products. The code also sets out messages limiting the scheduling of commercial messages during children's programs.
It further states that children's advertising must not encourage or portray a range of values that are inconsistent with the moral, ethical, or legal standards of contemporary Canadian society. A couple of years ago, Advertising Standards Canada set out an interpretation guideline pertaining to this clause that addresses food product advertising to children.
The broadcast code for advertising to children was created in 1971 by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and the Canadian Advertising Foundation, which is now Advertising Standards Canada. These groups created it in response to concerns expressed by consumer groups, parents, members of Parliament, and others at that time. Adherence to the code was initially voluntary, but since 1974 the commission has required broadcasters to adhere to the code as a condition of their licence. The commission did this in response to a report by the House of Commons standing committee on broadcasting, which indicated the desirability of a stronger enforcement system at that time.
Advertising Standards Canada plays a major role in the administration of the code, in that all advertising to children must be viewed and pre-cleared by ASC before it is broadcast. The review committee is made up of members of the advertising industry, broadcasters, and public representatives.
I will leave it to the ASC to relate their activities and experiences in this area to you.
Thank you for your attention. We would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Thank you very much. I appreciate that presentation.
We'll now move on to Concerned Children's Advertisers.
Ms. Cathy Loblaw, the floor is yours.
Cathy Loblaw President, Concerned Children's Advertisers
Thank you.
Good afternoon, and thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today and to participate in what we think is a very important discussion and study that you have undertaken on childhood obesity.
Let me begin by introducing myself. I am Cathy Loblaw and I am president of Concerned Children’s Advertisers. As many of you may know, Concerned Children’s Advertisers is a non-profit organization made up of twenty companies that largely market and advertise their products and services to Canadian children and their families.
CCA, as we are known, was founded in 1990 from the perspective that as an industry that presents its products and services to children, we wanted to ensure that when we spoke to children we did so in a manner that was responsible, age appropriate, and respected the inherent vulnerabilities of the child audience, which we do by adhering to a strict code of standards and ethics. Equally, we wanted to use our collective resources, skills, and influences to speak to children about social issues of challenge in their lives and to be a part of solutions.
Over the past seventeen years we've addressed a broad range of children’s issues. Annually, we track issues that affect children and work on both a business and social level to respond to those issues with effective and substantive programs and actions.
While our funding comes from both government and industry, our programs, messages, and positions are the result of a powerful collaboration of issue experts and NGOs who guide, direct, and help determine the content of our programs and actions. Specific to the issue of childhood obesity, which we first became engaged in about five years ago, we have brought together over seventeen leading health, education, and child issue experts to guide us in developing solutions that are child serving and specific to this issue. Those partner organizations are far ranging and include Health Canada, the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, the Ryerson School of Nutrition, the Canadian Diabetes Association, and many more.
It is from that context that industry, through CCA, very much respects and understands the issue of childhood obesity and shares your concern for the very real societal changes that will need to take place across a broad scope of determinants to ensure Canadian children, and for that matter all Canadians, can live long and healthy lives. We recognize that every sector, including the media and industry sector, have a role to play. We also recognize that no single sector caused this issue and no single sector will fix it.
To that end, let me share with you what we are doing in the industry and media sector specific to this issue. First, we have long recognized that advertising to children has an influence on both choice and preference. It is because of this that we have the very system in place that we do, that respects the child audience and has been working for over twenty years to ensure a transparent, accountable, and regulated system of checks and balances when it comes to advertising to children.
The current Canadian system is often considered a world leader in responsible advertising practices to children because of its multi-layered approach, codes, and regulatory components.
Let me highlight the pillars of our system.
As you've just heard from the CRTC, in Canada, broadcast advertising to children is regulated as a condition of licence. Therefore, all broadcast advertising to children must adhere to very specific and stated codes of conduct around what is allowed and what is not allowed when speaking to children. Additionally, what gives the code real teeth is that it is administered in a pre-clearance way by a representative committee that includes parents, broadcasters, and industry.
In addition to the pre-clearance code that exists for broadcast, we also have in place a respected Canadian code of advertising standards for all media, which is a complaint-based system and only requires one complaint to trigger a review of any ad in any medium. This system ensures that while industry takes the first line of responsibility by pre-clearing commercials through the broadcast code, there is an additional level of accountability for all media through a very responsive and transparent process.
It's also important to note that both the broadcast code and the Canadian code are living instruments, which, on a regular and ongoing basis, are strengthened and reviewed to ensure that they keep pace with changing issues. For example, not long ago a new clause was added specific to the issue of bullying, and two years ago a new interpretation guideline was added specific to the issue of food advertising. Further to that, it's important to note that all food advertising, including children’s food advertising, requires an additional level of review and is highly regulated under the Food and Drugs Act.
Recognizing the living nature of the codes, industry will continue to strengthen and bring forward clauses and interpretation guidelines as will best serve the child audience on this issue and other issues. Industry also has made a very meaningful commitment to use advertising as a powerful vehicle for message delivery in the areas of media literacy education and healthy active living.
Specific to media literacy, CCA recognizes that no matter how responsible we are with our codes and systems, children today are exposed to a broad range of media that is often beyond Canadian borders and beyond traditional children's programming. As a result, we feel strongly that in addition to observing our codes and standards, we must play an active role in teaching children media literacy education. We must encourage them to become critical thinkers, to be informed and educated, and to learn how to construct and deconstruct all forms of media, including advertising.
To this end, CCA plays an important role through our TV&Me package and our Long Live Kids program, which provide media literacy education for children in grades K to 8 and are delivered free of charge to educators and community leaders across Canada. Both the World Health Organization and the Institute of Medicine have highlighted media literacy education as a key strategy on this issue.
In addition to media literacy, industry has taken a very active role over the past five years in creating and delivering to children commercial messages and classroom programs on physical activity and healthy eating for our children's healthy active living series, Long Live Kids, which is broadcast daily across the country in both French and English and reaches over 90% of Canadian children and parents. This comprehensive five-step process combines industry regulation with government regulation, a responsive complaint-based system for all media, and media literacy education and social messaging on healthy active living.
We have examined, and will continue to examine, all areas and possibilities of contribution. One area you have asked us to comment on is whether the prohibition of some children's advertising could be effective in the prevention of childhood obesity. We have in fact explored that and looked at two communities where a prohibition on advertising is actually in place. One is Quebec and the other is Sweden.
In Quebec the prohibition has been in place since 1980. Since then, they have experienced a two to threefold increase in the rates of childhood obesity and overweight. In 1981 statistics showed that in Quebec the rate of childhood obesity and overweight was 11.5%, at that time among the lowest in Canada. The prohibition came into effect in 1980. By 1996, Quebec's childhood obesity and overweight rates had risen to 27%, an almost threefold increase. By 2004, it had climbed to 23% , a doubling of the 1981 rate. Certainly, from what we can see, the prohibition has not protected them against childhood obesity and overweight.
It is also worth noting that Alberta, which does not prohibit advertising to children, currently has Canada's lowest level of childhood obesity and overweight—22%, compared with the national average of 26%.
The data are similar for Sweden, which has had a prohibition on advertising to children since 1991. A study at University College of Physical Education and Sports in Sweden of Swedish youth looked at trends for over 14 years and found that the prevalence of overweight and obesity in 2001 was nearly 2.5 times higher than what was recorded in the 1987 sample. The rate of children being overweight and obese increased from 7.5% in 1987 to 20% in 2001, all during the prohibition on advertising to children.
Both Quebec and Sweden are struggling, just as we are, to find effective solutions to this issue, despite their prohibition on advertising to children.
In closing, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to be a part of this study and to assure you that industry very much respects and shares your concern for the health issue facing our children. We remain fully committed to being guided by science and research to work towards real solutions and strategies that can make a difference for children. We have been a part of the solution, and we will continue to be a part of it.
We recognize the emotional nature of this issue. After all, we're talking about our children. I'm the mother of a two-year-old and an eight-year-old, and I understand this first hand. But our solutions must be guided by credible science and research. Working in partnership with government, issue experts, academics, NGOs, and industry, we look forward to continuing to support and serve Canadian children and their families in living healthy active lives.
Our dialogues will continue, as will our learning about how we can continue our record of contribution and commitment.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Thank you.
Now, from Advertising Standards Canada, we have Linda Nagel. Ms. Nagel, the floor is yours.
Linda Nagel President and Chief Executive Officer, Advertising Standards Canada
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My name is Linda Nagel and I'm president of Advertising Standards Canada. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to meet with you today to discuss how food advertising in Canada is regulated and the role that Advertising Standards Canada, or ASC, my organization, plays in the regulation of food advertising to children.
Over the next few minutes, I'll provide some perspective on three topics: one, the role of ASC in the framework of responsible advertising regulation; two, the double-hurdle pre-clearance requirement for children's food broadcast advertising to ensure compliance with both Canada's Food and Drugs Act and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters broadcast code for advertising to children; and three, ASC's mechanisms for responding to consumers' complaints about advertising.
ASC is the national advertising self-regulatory body. Since its inception in 1957, our mandate remains unchanged: to ensure the integrity and viability of advertising in Canada through responsible advertising self-regulation. Fundamental to our efforts is the Canadian code of advertising standards, known as the code, which is the principal instrument of advertising self-regulation in Canada. The code was first published in 1963 and is regularly updated to keep it contemporary. The code's 14 clauses and its accompanying interpretation guidelines set the standards for acceptable advertising in all media, including print, broadcast, Internet, and billboards. The clauses of the code form the basis for adjudicating consumers' complaints about advertising. Advertising in Canada is highly regulated, and our code provides a complement to the existing legislative and regulatory framework.
The code is a nimble instrument. It can be easily updated to meet current and emerging issues. For example, as my colleague Cathy Loblaw mentioned, the code was amended two years ago to include a provision to prohibit depictions of bullying in advertising. As well, two interpretation guidelines were added to provide guidance on advertising to children, with specific reference to food advertising.
Given our unique self-regulatory mandate, over the years ASC became the logical and natural home for a number of advertising pre-clearance functions. Pre-clearance is the evaluation of an advertising message in advance of broadcast to ensure that it complies with a specific or pertinent regulation or regulatory framework. We started to pre-clear children's commercials in the 1970s, as Martine Vallee, from the CRTC, just mentioned. Then in the 1990s, at the request of advertisers and broadcasters, ASC's pre-clearance complement expanded to encompass broadcast advertising for food, cosmetics, alcoholic beverages, and non-prescription drugs. Today, ASC pre-clears over 11,000 advertisements per year. This important review function provides assurance to consumers, government, and industry that advertising complies with the pertinent regulatory framework.
Let's turn to the regulation of children's broadcast advertising. Recognizing the vulnerability and nature of the child audience, children's broadcast advertising is subject to two separate pre-clearances. The first is a technical review. In Canada, all food advertising, whether it be broadcast or not and whether directed to children or adults, must meet the requirements delineated in the Food and Drugs Act and regulations and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's guide to food labelling and advertising. Pre-clearance of broadcast food advertising by ASC helps ensure compliance with these requirements. This stringent technical review is provided by ASC's team of professional clearance analysts. Acceptable advertising submissions are assigned a clearance approval number that signifies to broadcasters that the ad complies with the regulations. ASC, of course, maintains a regular dialogue with Health Canada and the CFIA to ensure that we remain correct and current in our application of the act and the regulations.
Children's broadcast advertising is then subject to a second level of review or pre-clearance under the provisions of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, or CAB's, broadcast code for advertising to children, which we call the children's code.
Martine Vallee mentioned that this code was developed in the seventies to ensure that the special nature of the child audience was recognized. Canada's private broadcasters agreed to comply with the code as a condition of broadcast licence. The children's code applies to all of Canada, except for Quebec, where advertising is regulated under the Quebec Consumer Protection Act.
Included in the children's code is a requirement that all children's commercials, both food and non-food, be pre-cleared by an independent committee, the children's clearance committee. This committee convenes solely for the purpose of reviewing finished children's commercials. The committee includes public and private broadcasters, advertising industry members, and public representatives. The public representatives are nominated by consumer organizations, and they must be parents of children under the age of 12.
Approved children's commercials are assigned an ASC children's clearance number. Therefore, food commercials have two numbers before they air: one that says they comply with Canada's food laws and the second number signifying compliance with the children's code. The combination of Canada's stringent regulatory framework and the two required pre-clearances make our Canadian system unique around the world.
Time won't permit me to run through the whole children's code, but there are copies that have been provided to you in English and French. Of course, key among them are the ones that Martine mentioned: the prohibition in children's advertising against product endorsement by well-known personalities, a prohibition against suggesting a product will enhance a child's status, and restrictions on advertising frequency during children's programs.
As well, the interpretation guideline to clause 11 of the children's code--a new one--on food advertising was adopted in 2004. This requires that commercial messages be consistent with the provisions of the Food and Drugs Act--again, a reminder of the first level of clearance--that snack foods not be represented as meals, and that advertisements depicting a mealtime setting present a product within the context of a balanced diet.
Over 2,500 children's commercials are submitted to ASC each year for review by the children's committee. Of these, approximately 55% are for children's movies and entertainment, 35% are for toys and games, and 10% are for food products and restaurants.
Turning now to consumers' complaints, as the advertising self-regulatory body, ASC accepts consumers' complaints about advertising under the provisions of the Canadian code of advertising standards, or the code. While most complaints come to ASC directly from the concerned consumer, some are forwarded to us from regulatory bodies such as the CRTC, or from organizations such as the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.
Complaints are adjudicated by independent national and regional volunteer councils, which include both senior industry and public representatives. Of the 1,200 consumers' complaints that ASC received last year, 10% of these were about food advertisements. Virtually all of these, however, involved matters of personal opinion. They could have been for any category of advertising as they did not involve a food or nutrition issue. Not one of these complaints related to a children's food commercial. It's not unexpected that the rigorous pre-clearance process under the food regulatory framework and the children's code result in minimal complaints about nutrition-related issues.
In summary, the Canadian system, involving stringent regulatory and self-regulatory standards, advertising pre-clearance, and an accessible consumer complaints mechanism, has served Canadians well for almost fifty years. However, the pace of change continues to accelerate, and we need to continue to be nimble in setting and maintaining responsible advertising standards to meet current and emerging needs.
Thank you very much.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Thank you very much.
We'll now turn to the Media Awareness Network, Ms. Catherine Thurm.
The floor is yours.
Catherine Thurm Project Manager, Education, Media Awareness Network
Thank you very much for this opportunity. This is fantastic.
It's great to hear all of this information about advertising live. We have it all on our site summarized wonderfully and it's nice to know that we got it right.
This is what I'd like to talk about today. I'm going to give you a description of the organization I work for and I'm going to cover a bit of a hole in our discussions today, namely, what children are exposed to online.
First of all, I am with the Media Awareness Network. The Media Awareness Network is a national not-for-profit media education organization. Our vision is to ensure that children and youth have and possess the necessary critical thinking skills and tools to actively engage with the media. Our organization has been around for ten years and we've produced education resources that are distributed across Canada and around the world, and they are being used in classrooms to help facilitate media education and media literacy.
As I mentioned, I'm going to give you a sense of what kids are exposed to and how they're being enticed by food advertising, in particular, food advertising on the Internet. That's an area where we have considerable expertise, and I'll be able to give you a little research that we have conducted very recently. To avoid repetition, I'll go over a snapshot of the regulations and how they affect what kids are seeing on the Internet and what we can do about it. Then I want to give you a little piece abut the essential role of media education and this need for supporting media education as a component of facilitating a healthy society.
When you look at how kids are being marketed to, kids today are in a multimedia environment. In 2003 the Canadian Teachers' Federation conducted a national survey on kids' media use. We found that 75% of children watch television daily and 48% of kids have their own TV set. They are watching in their rooms. Some 60% of boys in grades 3 to 6 are playing video games or computer games almost every day. If we look at young children in regard to advertising, with the ABCs and brands, children are familiar with brands from an early age. Babies as young as six months can form mental images of corporate logos and mascots. Brand loyalties can be established as early as age two, and by the time children head off to school, most can recognize hundreds of brand logos.
The surfing habits of young people make them ideal candidates and targets for both online advertisers and market research. Forrester Research notes that, compared to adults, young Internet users stay online for longer periods of time. They're more likely to access the Internet from different locations and participate in a wider range of online activities, many under the watchful eye of commercial sites that collect their personal information. Kids also multi-task with various media effortlessly. Online and offline, marketers are interested in kids because of their spending power.
Online marketers are also interested in the kids because essentially these are kids who are going to influence the family purchases. Youth culture research has shown that 12- to 24-year-olds in Canada account for approximately $62 billion in personal income. Even those at the younger end of this demographic have a surprising amount of disposable cash. They have $114 a week, on average, for kids who are 12 to 17 years old.
I have five kids, and none of them has that much to spend in a week, I have to say, but that's a side note.
“Young Canadians in a Wired World” is a research study that we recently did through the Media Awareness Network. This was phase two, as a follow-up to our 2001 survey. We took a look at what kids are doing online and how they're interacting with what they see. The research included findings on the commercial nature of kids' favourite online spaces, particularly food advertising. In fact, almost 94% of the top 50 sites included marketing materials.
When we look at online marketing, we are looking at kids' sites that are designed to build brand recognition and relationships with children and youth. They build these relationships through online ads, but also through immersive environments, virtual communities, and virtual marketing. They also use data mining techniques to collect personal information, so we have online advertisers that are tending to steer away from your traditional sales pitches. They're not going through Advertising Standards Canada for approval of their ads. What we see are these creative virtual playgrounds where content and advertising are seamlessly integrated into graphics and games.
Neopets actually trademarked the term “immersive advertising”, referring to it very proudly as its interactive advertising technique and claiming that it's an evolutionary step forward in traditional marketing practices of product placement using television and motion pictures. According to an MNet survey, in fact, Neopets is in the top five favourite sites for kids from grade 4 all the way to grade 9. It has staying power.
Advergames are a particular type of immersive environment. These are interactive online games centred on brands, products, or brand-related characters. In particular, these are a popular tool for food advertisers such as Candystand, Nabisco, and Lucky Charms. These are just a few examples of the advertising-based sites that have these advergames--flashy, interactive, engaging games for kids who are very young.
As one marketer states, “Could you imagine anyone staring at a magazine advertisement or a banner ad for three to eight minutes?” But kids will happily play brand-focused games for long periods of time. Marketers call this youthful demographic “sticky traffic”. When we're talking about food advertising and Life Savers, it's “sticky traffic”.
For young children, the web appears to be the new playground, the seamless integration of junk food advertising and interactivity. However, it is misleading for these young people. Our research showed that three-quarters of the kids think advergames are just games. Kids aren't aware that sites such as Neopets make money by integrating advertising products, services, and brands into the games they are playing. Neopets, for example, derives 60% of its revenue from advertising and 40% from product placement, mostly in games available on these sites.
We want to take a look at what I've just told you in relation to what we have for advertising regulations legislation and voluntary codes in Canada.
We have the Canadian code of advertising standards, which encompasses the broadcast code for advertising to children. We have the new interpretive guidelines for food advertising developed in 2004. We know that legislation in Quebec prohibits television advertising, but we also know that foreign services carried by cable companies don't have to follow this country's codes and regulations.
When it comes to advergames and other online marketing, there is no specific Canadian legislation or regulation. Canada does not have legislation in place to deal with the Internet as a unique medium presenting its own distinct problems and requiring its own solutions.
Considering these regulations and codes, looking at the new ways in which children are being exposed to the media, I think what we find is a hole. We find that kids are interacting with junk food advertising with very little supervision and very little intervention, and they're just unaware of exactly what they're seeing and the implications of what they're seeing.
I think--and of course I come to you with this bias--that education is an important tool in the overall process. It isn't the only solution, but it is absolutely a critical one. It is the responsibility of the ministries of education and health to ensure that teachers, parents, physicians, and children have the tools and skills they need to make healthy lifestyle choices and to guide our young people into making these healthy lifestyle choices.
Media literacy must be an essential part of the Canadian strategy for encouraging these healthy lifestyle choices. Media literacy is commonly defined as the ability to assess, analyze, evaluate, and--even for young people today--to produce media that.... It's the process of becoming active rather than passive consumers of media. It's being able to read between the lines of junk food advertising and to understand the difference between entertainment and food marketing. It's the ability to question the connections between the food industry and one's own personal health, self-esteem, and self-image.
Media education is the essential tool in helping kids acquire media literacy skills. It is the process of teaching and learning about media so that learners acquire media literacy knowledge and skills. Canada is in fact a pioneer in the development of media education. In the late 1980s Ontario became the first educational jurisdiction in the world to mandate media literacy as part of their English curriculum. Currently, media education is part of the core curricula in every provincial and territorial jurisdiction in Canada.
If we look at a little part of media education, we see how lifestyle choices and healthy relationships are central to the health and professional development courses. We see how media and popular culture can provide a framework for discussing junk food advertising, alcohol and tobacco use, sexuality, body image, obesity, media violence, diversity, and gender representation.
Unfortunately, despite the efforts to date, media education has been slow to be implemented in the classroom. Over the last--
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
We're going to have to ask you to wrap it up very quickly. You're actually over quite a bit already, and this is a large panel.
Project Manager, Education, Media Awareness Network
Sorry. I will wrap it up.
Essentially, the Media Awareness Network has extensive resources already. We've been developing them for ten years. You can go on our site and find professional development tools for teachers. We've done work for physicians. We have lesson plans; “Selling Obesity” is one of our lesson plans. Those are available free on our website.
What I want to leave you with today is the message that education is an important part of this overall process. It is the link between what kids are seeing, doing, and are actively engaged in and how they think about themselves--their body image and their self-esteem. What we need to do is patch over the holes in regulation, work on education, and basically make sure that we build partnerships through the government and industry to continue to support education in this area.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Thank you very much.
Your interest is obvious in this issue, as is the large number of presenters we have. As this study is going on, we're seeing those lists grow.
I apologize, to some degree, to the committee for the large panel, because it is exhausting when we listen to it all and then don't have the opportunity to question much.
But we have one more, so we'll listen to one more.
From the Association of Canadian Advertisers, Mr. Robert Reaume, the floor is yours. Very quickly, please.
Robert Reaume Vice-President, Policy and Research, Association of Canadian Advertisers
Thank you.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Mr. Chairman, before we start, may I ask for unanimous consent to continue this meeting at least until we hear Mr. Reaume's presentation because otherwise nobody will have the time to ask questions. We have questions to ask these people. May I ask all my colleagues to agree to stay a little longer so that we can really ask all the questions we have?